The thing I find most shocking of all was that at least according to book canon, Arthur and Molly never made a single attempt to invite Harry over during the summer of Prisoner of Azkaban??? Like this was after Ron directly told Molly that he was being starved with bars on his window! Molly knew this! There’s a reason this child lived with them for a whole month!
And then all of a sudden the next summer rolls around and the Weasleys were all like, “Lol nope we’re going on a vacation have fun with that convicted murderer who’s looking for you, here’s a photo of us having a good time without you.”
And of course Harry, my darling cinnamon roll of a child, is just sitting there half-starved with Dudley’s hand-me-downs hanging of of him, smiling like, “Oh wow, they had a lot of fun, I bet!”
And it’s like even when they came back, they still didn’t do a single thing to help Harry. Hang on, isn’t this also the summer of the telephone incident? Why would Ron even bother casually calling up Harry like he had to rescue him from his barred up bedroom! He should know that he can’t just call up Vernon and be like, “Hey, how’s it going, is Harry there?” No, Ron! He’s in his barred bedroom! ‘Sorry about that,’ he casually says in his note. His note! Why was his note, ‘Hey, look at how much fun we had’ and not ‘Hey, are you still alive?’
Why didn’t Arthur and Molly make an attempt to get him? Why didn’t Fred, George, and Ron show up to Privet Drive again?
Why were the Weasleys an amazing surrogate family to Harry except for this one time when they severely dropped the ball and nearly got the poor child expelled because he had to use magic to stand up to his abusive relatives?
Did Jo just think we would get tired of two similar summers? Because we wouldn’t have! If it meant that Harry was in a loving, household, I’d be fine if she had just copied and pasted the entire The Burrow chapter. Or hell, if you need something original, send Harry to Egypt with them. Don’t just have the entire Weasley family randomly forget about this boy! It’s so out-of-character!
They would never…
*sing song voice* fucking thANK YOU
Except I bet you anything it was fucking Dumbledore. How much do you want to bet that Molly and Arthur were LIVID, ready to haze Privet Drive to the ground, and he’d cut them off with bullshit about how sorry he was about it, but “no matter how much you love the boy Molly, he’s not blood, and Lily’s sacrifice and blood magic is the only thing that can TRULY protect him.”
And then probably rigged it that they’d win the money as a distraction.
Ugh, I mean, yea, I know there are legitimate Reasons they couldn’t do that, and as @dorkosaurus-prime points out, the Weasley’s do have their life outside of Harry and his ordeals. It’s not fair to expect that of them, but the narrative just felt so jarring between books now with hindsight, which is less a “the Weasley’s are questionable” and more a “with hindsight JK Rowling has the narrative cohesion of a chocolate tea kettle”.
You’re also super angry because I’m pretty sure you got those two things mixed up. The messed up phone call came in book 2, didn’t it? Which is part of the reason he couldn’t manage to contact the Weasleys for help. And then presumably they were told over the school year that Harry *had* to go home to the Dursley’s the next summer, and then by book 4 they were able to start coming up with excuses to have him over every summer as early and for as long as possible.
The thing I find most shocking of all was that at least according to book canon, Arthur and Molly never made a single attempt to invite Harry over during the summer of Prisoner of Azkaban??? Like this was after Ron directly told Molly that he was being starved with bars on his window! Molly knew this! There’s a reason this child lived with them for a whole month!
And then all of a sudden the next summer rolls around and the Weasleys were all like, “Lol nope we’re going on a vacation have fun with that convicted murderer who’s looking for you, here’s a photo of us having a good time without you.”
And of course Harry, my darling cinnamon roll of a child, is just sitting there half-starved with Dudley’s hand-me-downs hanging of of him, smiling like, “Oh wow, they had a lot of fun, I bet!”
And it’s like even when they came back, they still didn’t do a single thing to help Harry. Hang on, isn’t this also the summer of the telephone incident? Why would Ron even bother casually calling up Harry like he had to rescue him from his barred up bedroom! He should know that he can’t just call up Vernon and be like, “Hey, how’s it going, is Harry there?” No, Ron! He’s in his barred bedroom! ‘Sorry about that,’ he casually says in his note. His note! Why was his note, ‘Hey, look at how much fun we had’ and not ‘Hey, are you still alive?’
Why didn’t Arthur and Molly make an attempt to get him? Why didn’t Fred, George, and Ron show up to Privet Drive again?
Why were the Weasleys an amazing surrogate family to Harry except for this one time when they severely dropped the ball and nearly got the poor child expelled because he had to use magic to stand up to his abusive relatives?
Did Jo just think we would get tired of two similar summers? Because we wouldn’t have! If it meant that Harry was in a loving, household, I’d be fine if she had just copied and pasted the entire The Burrow chapter. Or hell, if you need something original, send Harry to Egypt with them. Don’t just have the entire Weasley family randomly forget about this boy! It’s so out-of-character!
They would never…
*sing song voice* fucking thANK YOU
Except I bet you anything it was fucking Dumbledore. How much do you want to bet that Molly and Arthur were LIVID, ready to haze Privet Drive to the ground, and he’d cut them off with bullshit about how sorry he was about it, but “no matter how much you love the boy Molly, he’s not blood, and Lily’s sacrifice and blood magic is the only thing that can TRULY protect him.”
And then probably rigged it that they’d win the money as a distraction.
Ugh, I mean, yea, I know there are legitimate Reasons they couldn’t do that, and as @dorkosaurus-prime points out, the Weasley’s do have their life outside of Harry and his ordeals. It’s not fair to expect that of them, but the narrative just felt so jarring between books now with hindsight, which is less a “the Weasley’s are questionable” and more a “with hindsight JK Rowling has the narrative cohesion of a chocolate tea kettle”.
I mean like Harry had quite a bit of gold in his vault, I know their pride meant he didn’t buy stuff for them or pay for his food at theirs or anything, but they could have said, hey we’re going to Egypt, come with us, I can take you to the wizarding travel agent and we’ll take care of everything else in the country. I mean the whole blood magic thing worked so long as Harry considered it home but that’s a pile of crock shit because Hogwarts was his home as soon as he got there, so really he should have just camped out there a week and pissed off.
The thing I find most shocking of all was that at least according to book canon, Arthur and Molly never made a single attempt to invite Harry over during the summer of Prisoner of Azkaban??? Like this was after Ron directly told Molly that he was being starved with bars on his window! Molly knew this! There’s a reason this child lived with them for a whole month!
And then all of a sudden the next summer rolls around and the Weasleys were all like, “Lol nope we’re going on a vacation have fun with that convicted murderer who’s looking for you, here’s a photo of us having a good time without you.”
And of course Harry, my darling cinnamon roll of a child, is just sitting there half-starved with Dudley’s hand-me-downs hanging of of him, smiling like, “Oh wow, they had a lot of fun, I bet!”
And it’s like even when they came back, they still didn’t do a single thing to help Harry. Hang on, isn’t this also the summer of the telephone incident? Why would Ron even bother casually calling up Harry like he had to rescue him from his barred up bedroom! He should know that he can’t just call up Vernon and be like, “Hey, how’s it going, is Harry there?” No, Ron! He’s in his barred bedroom! ‘Sorry about that,’ he casually says in his note. His note! Why was his note, ‘Hey, look at how much fun we had’ and not ‘Hey, are you still alive?’
Why didn’t Arthur and Molly make an attempt to get him? Why didn’t Fred, George, and Ron show up to Privet Drive again?
Why were the Weasleys an amazing surrogate family to Harry except for this one time when they severely dropped the ball and nearly got the poor child expelled because he had to use magic to stand up to his abusive relatives?
Did Jo just think we would get tired of two similar summers? Because we wouldn’t have! If it meant that Harry was in a loving, household, I’d be fine if she had just copied and pasted the entire The Burrow chapter. Or hell, if you need something original, send Harry to Egypt with them. Don’t just have the entire Weasley family randomly forget about this boy! It’s so out-of-character!
They would never…
*sing song voice* fucking thANK YOU
Except I bet you anything it was fucking Dumbledore. How much do you want to bet that Molly and Arthur were LIVID, ready to haze Privet Drive to the ground, and he’d cut them off with bullshit about how sorry he was about it, but “no matter how much you love the boy Molly, he’s not blood, and Lily’s sacrifice and blood magic is the only thing that can TRULY protect him.”
And then probably rigged it that they’d win the money as a distraction.
Ugh, I mean, yea, I know there are legitimate Reasons they couldn’t do that, and as @dorkosaurus-prime points out, the Weasley’s do have their life outside of Harry and his ordeals. It’s not fair to expect that of them, but the narrative just felt so jarring between books now with hindsight, which is less a “the Weasley’s are questionable” and more a “with hindsight JK Rowling has the narrative cohesion of a chocolate tea kettle”.
I feel like this is especially poignant because literal months ago the boy fought a basilisk to the death, saved their daughter, and proceeded to become a hero again after being a pariah for almost a whole year. (Never even minding the ptsd following that and having dealt with a professor who actively tried to sell his soul for some gold. Trustworthy adults who? Harry doesn’t know her.)
In which Harry was slightly faster in killing the basilisk
and isn’t bitten.
HP, basically gen (sorry anon! there’s Tom and Harry but it’s not really romantic), crack written seriously, second year.
Harry sucked in a deep breath as the basilisk’s great head
fell to the ground, its scratched-out, unseeing eyes blank with death. He was
bruised and scratched from falling and his hands felt raw from clenching the
heavy Gryffindor sword, but otherwise he was uninjured, while his mythical
opponent lay dead on the stone floor of the chamber. I’m alive, Harry
thought with deep gulps of breath as he took a few shaky steps and snatched the
diary from the ground. He held it over one of the basilisk’s fangs, prepared to
destroy it and erase Tom’s presence from this world. He only wished he could do
the same with Voldemort.
“Wait!” the shade of the young man yelled when the
diary was only a few hairs away from being pierced.
Against all odds, Harry stopped. Maybe it was the shaking of
his tired arms, maybe it was the fear in Tom’s voice, but Harry let him have
his final words before death. He continued to hold the diary above the
basilisk’s venomous fang, but met Tom’s eyes as the shade glanced furtively
between Harry and the diary. “Before you decide to murder me, let me
explain.”
“It’s not murder,” Harry said. If this had been any less
stressful of a situation, he would’ve rolled his eyes. “What you were going to
do to Ginny—that’s murder. I’m just getting rid of an outdated old book.”
It’s
surreal, the way Harry can just enter it with his wand in his pocket, no care
for any dangers that might lurk within. The Death Eaters had driven the
creatures out of the forest by having the students practice unforgiveables on
any animal unlucky to be caught. His ears catch no sounds, his eyes no
movement. Harry stumbles past the clearing where he died only a few days
before. He doesn’t stop.
It’s
getting late, but he’s too tired to sleep. It feels like a pepper-up
crash. A bone-deep exhaustion has settled into his bones, one he can’t seem to shake long enough
to close his eyes. His mortal enemy is gone; the man who’d bestowed upon Harry
the worst moments of his life, the other half of Trelawney’s prophecy, the man
whose soul Harry housed for sixteen years. Harry doesn’t grieve him, but he
cannot bring himself to celebrate, either.
Harry’s
life has finally turned right-side up. This is the way it should be, he keeps telling himself, his heart
pounding and his scar silent. This is Harry Potter without Voldemort. In a just
world, their fates never would’ve
crossed in the first place.
And yet, Harry keeps walking through the forest. The trees
grow taller and thicker the further he travels. Somewhere up ahead, a bird
faintly chirps. Harry feels numb to the cold evening air and the stinging of
his feet. I’m myself
again. I’m Harry Potter. He can no longer speak to snakes and the
area around his scar feels different. What else is gone, changed? Take one
soul, subtract a longterm parasite. Is it still the same soul? Harry has never
been one for deep questions about the nature of humanity, but finding out you’ve been a horcrux changes
you.
A rumbling sound begins to echo through the forest. Harry
scrambles for his wand before his brain can register the fact that it isn’t the growl of an animal.
It’s too cyclical, mechanical. Familiar. Harry keeps his wand raised, but his
shoulders loosen when he sees the headlights through the trees. It’s a little
late, but there it is, the Ford Anglia helping him out of a tough spot once
again. Harry hadn’t been looking forward to walking all the way back to the
castle.
Half of the car’s
blue paint has peeled away, creating a patchwork of blues and yellows and
greens on its surface. Some vines have managed to wedge through the windows,
contentedly nestled into the body of the car. From the driver’s seat, a young
woman with radish earrings smiles at him.
Harry huffs a short, strangled laugh. If there’s anyone who can tame the
Ford Anglia, it’s Luna.
“Hop
in!” Luna calls, reaching over to wedge open the passenger side door. Luna
looks closer to the way she used to be before the war, but there’s still something brittle in
her bright eyes. “We’re going to find a heliopath herd.”
Harry gets inside, but he doesn’t stay in the passenger’s seat. He climbs into the backseat
instead. It’s surprisingly clean for a car that’s been roaming wild through the
Forbidden Forest for six years. Harry curls up on the leather seats and rests
his head on his arms. “We’re picking up the others, right?”
“Of
course,” Luna says.
And that’s
enough for him.
She holds the steering wheel like a horse rein. Harry nods
off to the sound of her voice as she asks the car about its adventures in the
forest. Harry must be asleep because he could’ve sworn it answered.
I know Vriska has been lauded as the magic ingredient that kept the meteor from death spiraling through sheer force of narcissism, but you know what could have done that better?
All the kids travelling in the same place.
Rose was always the one who got Jade best. In close quarters, I’m confident she would have cracked Jade’s facade. Plus, Jade and Karkat were already calling each other out on a pretty regular basis. She wouldn’t have been able to get away with her repression.
Davesprite would have seen the warning signs for Rose’s drinking problem. Even if he was too deep in a funk at that point, I doubt Jade and John would have let her sink into it as much.
Karkat and John’s deathgrip vs laisse faire leadership styles might have clashed, bumped around, and evolved into something a bit more moderate and reasonable.
The Daves being exposed to each other for long periods of time could have helped them face, accept, and work through some of their issues with themselves and each other.
In general, there would be too many people running around to let people drop off the face of the earth/pair off in increasingly isolated and toxic dynamics. And of course, no matter what else happened, you’d have a Breath player on the loose – a Breath player with dreambubbles, planets, a meteor, and a whole bunch of friends to explore and interact with rather than feeling stifled and constrained. With that much initiative/networking/communication constantly in their faces, there’s no way things could have gotten as bad as they did.
Obviously that couldn’t happen because of Story Reasons, but man, if we were going to retcon the last several years in order to ‘fix’ everyone, this would have been more fun.
Maybe in a shocking twist of fate the next Scourge Sisters log will be that.
I really hope so!
I’m a big Scourge Sisters fan, and so far the interaction we got was nothing like their normal dynamic… no poking and prodding, no teasing, no black hints at all. This is not good, and I hope it gets amended at the first opportunity. Terezi are you okay
(also 100% truth on to topic of shared journey. The meteor problem was many people in a small space, and the battleship problem was way too few people in a vast space, and all together they’d be better off. Like, shared training sessions, instead of just Jade and John – and I’m pretty sure in the original meteor trip they discussed the lack of training grounds or anything constructive to do at all… John would have had something to apply himself to – half the meteor crew are ready-made prank target practice… etc)
Some people hate Homestuck because they think it’s about a boy who just stands around in his bedroom. I will not try to tell these people that they are wrong, but at least with my help they can easily lie to their friends by pretending that they have actually read Homestuck and enjoyed it.
Here are some choice plot points from acts 1 through 6, in no particular order:
Mark Twain is killed by a newborn baby dual-wielding flintlock pistols
Somebody chops a meteor in half with a sword
One of the villains builds a tall building full of staircases just to torment a guy in a wheelchair
About 90% of the characters are time travelers
Somebody attacks a planet by dropping a moon out of orbit
A god shows up and literally juggles a bunch of planets
A Prohibition-era mobster plows through a wall Kool-Aid Man style
The whole universe blows up
A completely different universe also blows up
The author jumps into the story and engages in melee combat with the devil himself
The creators of the universe track down the main characters to scream at them over the internet
Betty Crocker lands her alien spaceship on Earth
There are dinosaurs
I apologize for how much was left out of this summary. By the time it reaches completion, Homestuck will be longer than Leo Tolstoy’s famous novel War and Peace. If anyone wants to try writing a better summary, I wish them luck.
A) I think you mean one of the *heroes* builds a tall building full of staircases to torment a guy in a wheelchair
B) well I guess she IS a villain, but
C) she’s definitely one if the heroes… I think…
D) okay I think this got weird but then again it was already weird with her
E) the funny thing is she’s not even like an antihero, she’s literally trying to be a hero
F) my phone just autocorrected “hero” to “jerk” in that last bullet point and if that doesn’t just summarize her I don’t know what does
I’m so glad that your thought process 100% mirrored mine
anon, just for you, i just ctrl-f searched the entirety of homestuck and screenshotted every single instance of vriska saying “like,” as her inner valleygirlness is yearning to do.
notice how most of these happen while vriska is undergoing positive emotional development as (vriska), or while she’s on the meteor post-retcon? that indicates that she is more likely to be valleygirl-ish when she’s happier. therefore, vriska serket secretly has a californian accent.
Cheloneuniverse 